I love pseudo-documentary and pseudo-newscast movies, ever since I watched Without Warning [0] and had to sleep on my parents' floor because it felt too real for me.
Very nice. On my end, I vibe coded a daily newsletter that sends me a short text in Latin each day that describes an event that happened on that day in history.
You won't hear me say that the housing market doesn't need an overhaul, but I'm not sure that the "a factory job could buy you a home out of high school" meme is entirely accurate. If you look at home ownership rates, the rates today are higher than (though not by much) the rates in the 1960s: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
I can't find numbers from earlier than 1980, but 18-44 _is_ lower, though again the rate in 1980 was just a few percentage points higher, and not nearly high enough to imply that home ownership out of high school was in reach for the majority:
https://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/data/charts/fig07.pdf
I think it's fine if you accept it as entertainment and nothing more. That's why I don't get how people listen to audiobooks on 3x. The goal isn't to ingest as much as you can--the goal is to enjoy it and maybe learn something useful here and there.
I have an old phone I've repurposed as a media player. It has a 500 GB SD card and Oluancher to give it a really convenient way to only show the apps I want.
I've got a somewhat weekly 6 hour round-trip commute where it get a lot of use.
Moving to a country that doesn't speak English has taught me just how many pronunciations of my last name there are. It's never really bothered me, though, and 90% of the time I'll introduce myself with the "wrong" one. It's easier for everyone.
Samesies; when I moved to Texas, people put the accent in my name on the wrong syllable, but after awhile that began to sound more natural than my name with the accent in the correct place but with an American accent. "PAYvel" sounds worse to me than "PahVEL", so I go by the latter - presumably fucking it up for every Pavel that comes into these people's lives after me.
What gets me is the people who decide not to call me by the name I specifically introduce myself with.
I have a nasal vowel in my name that, so far in my life, only French and Portuguese speakers have pronounced properly.
I learned English in the US young enough that no one guesses I'm not native, and I anglicized my name so that it could be pronounced easily. It is what I go by.
I introduce myself with this adopted pronunciation. People often ask me how to pronounce it in French, so I tell them, but reiterate that I go by the anglicized pronunciation.
Inevitably, those folks start using their wrong attempt at French and I have to correct them and tell them I go by the anglicized pronunciation.
Yeah. Every time someone asks me, "but how do you really pronounce it", I do a big internal sigh and resign myself to the next 10 minutes being a useless pronunciation lesson.
And when they somehow come away satisfied that their wrong pronunciation works... ugh.
I will say though, I'm perfectly fine with people not being able to pronounce my name, and I do expect the same courtesy in return. I'll give it my best shot, but if it's not happening, it's just not happening.
I'm also Pavel, and it just seems to be one of those names that native English speakers have trouble with.
Protip: it seems to help if you stick an accent on "a": "Pável". In US, people have usually seen enough Spanish to interpret this more or less correctly, and of course it also doubles as a stress marker.
That said, personally, I often don't bother and also go with the default [ˈpei.vɪl] just because it's easier to go with the flow.
I grew up in the US and didn't realize for quite a few years that most people pronounce my last name differently than my family does. After a while I decided that they were right, and just rolled with it. Our pronunciation is closer to the original spelling we see in old genealogy docs. I have no idea why they changed it. Maybe universal literacy wasn't such a thing back then. "What's your last name?" "Suchandsuch." "Is that spelled like [...]?" "Yeah, sure, I guess?"
But I grew up around a lot of Polish families, and my classmates had the annual fun of explaining to our teachers that "Salchow" is pronounced like "Sargrow". I won't complain to much about people "mispronouncing" mine.
> I grew up in the US and didn't realize for quite a few years that most people pronounce my last name differently than my family does. After a while I decided that they were right, and just rolled with it.
I technically mispronounce my own name, and always have. Same thing happened, just a generation or two up.
I'm in the process of changing my name to one that fits the country I live in, for similar reasons. It's just easier for everyone. Names are a tool for communicating with other people, they're not who you are.
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